Four years into launching an agency led by women, here’s what I have learned
Annabelle Jones, co-founder and director of we scout, reflects on the agency's four years in market.
This year will mark four years of we scout – an agency that was launched with the sole purpose of doing things differently. When we launched our agency, we set out to deliver quality work for purpose-led clients, to challenge the traditional agency model and to make sure we were committed to actively prioritising diversity, equality and inclusion, every step of the way.
We offer opportunities to those who are commercially creative and great at their job, and disregard gender, race, background, age or family choices. We make sure that new employees are never asked if they planned to have children anytime soon.
We pride ourselves on being an agency founded by women who unlock new thinking and translate that thinking into ideas that have impact. We built an agency that is not just successful, but resilient and always inclusive.
It is really important to acknowledge that I am a white woman who has grown up in Australia.
There is no denying my position of privilege. Our team is small, and our senior leadership team are all women.
In the early stages of our inception, we identified the limitations of a small agency, and launched an initiative called the we scout perspectives panel. This is a service that provides clients access to a panel of Australians from across the country who bring with them different views on the work we do.
The panel brings together different lived experiences, and seeks to offer different viewpoints to ensure an inclusive lens over all ideation and executed work. It’s made up of men, women and non-binaries. In that group we have diversity, inclusion and Indigenous equity educators, disability advocates, LGBTIQA+ advocates and educators, and body positivity and acceptance advocates. It is our way of ensuring that our thinking, and our agency practices, always consider many experiences, despite the size of our team and our own lived experiences.
Our diversity panel is not client facing, and every so often I experience first-hand the research grounded in gender role theories that shows women, every day, face numerous disadvantages relative to men, with mothers often facing the greatest obstacles.
Is it the reference to ‘ladies’ when our senior leadership team enters a Zoom? Or is it the daily questions we face as working mothers around juggling family commitments outside of work. Is it the description of ‘working mother’, and the fact that working fathers are never granted this title?
Jones (left) pictured with co-founder Lori Susko
So, four years on from our launching an agency founded by two women, we have learned a lot, too many to jot down in one article, but here are some of the lessons that I think are most important.
Women underestimate themselves: I’ve seen it in our team, and to be honest I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel it too, but I think our humility is our superpower. With a senior leadership team made up of women, we have unwavering dedication, fierce work ethic and commitment to “do it all” and do it really bloody well (most of the time). In fact, we have carved out an arm of the business that specialises in the storytelling of female-led client partners, and the work we have done with these brands is some of our proudest work.
Walking away from client partners can sometimes be a good thing: As an employee I was taught that losing a client was, well, totally unacceptable, but as a business owner I’ve learned that it is actually ok to walk away (when the time is right). When a client partnership has run its course, there is nothing more powerful than calling time and knowing the work you delivered is something you’re proud of.
Be an ally to your team: If our team feels supported, the sky’s the limit – even more so for women.
Take the work seriously but have fun while doing it: I have worked in agencies for my entire career and I love it. At we scout, we are really proud of the fact we have found the somewhat delicate balance between having fun and producing great work. For now, this formula is working for us and it’s been my favourite part of starting our agency.
I really do feel like I am living out my agency dream and it feels good that we’re making the difference we set out to make, one voice, one pitch, and one client, at a time.
Annabelle Jones is co-founder and director at we scout.
